- from "Sum children are more equal than others," Herald Sun, Sept 08, 2008
Are you smarter than a third grader? Don't count on it. A national math contest has proven Victoria [Australia] has its share of baby brainiacs.
Seven budding mathematicians rose to the top in this year's Educational Assessment Australia maths contest: Eddie Yao from Kew East Primary, Mingyi Wu from Tucker Rd Bentleigh Primary; Kelvin Sun from Parktone Primary; William Ruan from Serpell Primary; Laura Hung from Sunshine Christian School, Martin Huang from Glendal Primary and Morris Gu from Southwood Boys Grammar are Victoria's youngest whizzes. (more)and...
- from "Black schools the answer to black crime in London?" London Daily, Sept 07 2008
The increasingly unruly nature of an element of black Londoners has now focused on the educational failings in the state sector, with leading black politician Lee Jasper and former aide to former Mayor Livingstone calling for support to have black only schools."The fact is, it's time the black community ran its own schools, devised a curriculum that suited the needs of our children and employed teachers that look like the young people they are teaching."
In Toronto, Canada the Toronto District School Board approved for the establishment of "Afrocentric or black-focused schools" in 2009 which aims to address the high level dropout of black children estimated to be at 40% per cent in the city. In London the "dropout" rate is around 20-30% in certain areas of London, with crime figures indicating that murders amongst young people show blacks to be the victims and perpetrators in 80% of cases.
The black school in Toronto has been a very emotive issue with emotions raised during the debates evaluating the merits of the school. The supporters for the black schools in Toronto went onto to say:
"Opening one school does not address the problem across the system [...] a significant number of students of African descent are not doing well in our schools, we have a responsibility to address the needs across the system. We see the Africentric school request as part of a bigger [plan...] to effectively close the gap." (more)
On a side note, it is interesting to see Jasper insisting that Black students need "teachers who look like the young people they are teaching." It's an excuse for poor performance, for sure. However, it is also a blunt admission that race matters. So can Whites ask for White teachers and a White school? Forget it: that would be 'racist'.
Something else to think about: if the Blacks claim racial cohesion is necessary for school morale and productivity, then wouldn't the same be true for workplaces, neighbourhoods, sports teams, the military, etc.? You have to be consistent. And consistently, we see evidence that every aspect of our society would be better off if it were broken up into homogeneous parts.
